www.ccsenet.

org/ass

Asian Social Science

Vol. 7, No. 1; January 2011

Debate on the Multiculturalism: Issues and Particularism

DICKO Abdourahamane
Department of Sociology, Wuhan University
Wuhan 430072, China
E-mail: dabdourahamanedicko772@gmail.com
Abstract
In its appearances and its contemporary manifestation, the challenges provoked by the thrust of cultural identities
have up to half a century of history. Since the 60s, it unveiled the broad social fragility and the problem of
coexistence between cultures in democratic countries. This challenge has shacked the dictatorial, the
authoritarian regimes, in particular when it alludes to the religious organizations, or national liberation groups.
And it taps well our countries, under the shape of religious, nationalist movements, either still fights which
recover from what we call indigenism. Faced with this challenge, we cannot formulate summary hypotheses. We
are not any more at the beginning phase made by unknowns: we are engaged deeply in conflicts, tensions and
transformations which we know already are not ephemeral .It does not obviously mean that their expressions are
stabilized, or that their senses are fixed to the long term. To bring knowledge and more clarity on the nature of
the problems in cause and on the way they are envisage in the public debate.
We suggest analyzing in what the multiculturalism is a solution of the identical crises. Produce knowledge on the
cultural differences, their production, their transformation and their reproduction; examine the problems which
they generate in the social life, the meanings which they dress for the interested and for others; report their
difficulties and their internal tensions: all is within the competence of the sociological analysis and requires as
such specific theoretical and methodological tools. To return our coherent and practical work we are going to
support our reflection with a case study, at least comparative between several multiculturalists models in
particular French, American, Canadian and British. This exercise will allow us to kick away hypotheses which
will be used as runway to the scientific community and to all society in the grip of the identical crises. However,
the elaboration of a theoretical frame of the multiculturalists question stays a preliminary tool. As mentioned
theoretical frame elaboration will serve as support of reflection .It will allow us to seize better the notion of the
multiculturalism .it will include three main trunk dimensions which are: the Definition of the multiculturalism,
the management of the multiculturalism and the identical tensions connected to the vertical and horizontal
inheritances. According to Amnesty International multiculturalism is defined as a policy to maintain and to value
the various cultures and the communities living within a society. It also implies fighting against the
discriminations and promoting the whole and fair individuals participation and the communities of any origins to
the social life. This definition brings to light the objectives of an ideal policy of the multiculturalism. We shall
also retain of this definition which the multiculturalism can be understood under three approaches: sociological,
institutional and ideological. The sociological approach is interested in the ethnic and cultural composition and
interactions in the public area. It reports the facts state and the problem aroused by the intercultural relations.
The institutional approach is more pragmatic, because it refers to the means of multiculturalism management: in
the laws, in the policies, in the regulations, etc. The ideological approach recovers from the philosophic domain.
It is the reflection which joins in reaction to the governmental policies about the multiculturalism management.
Keywords: Cultural differences, Multiculturalism, Multiculturalism management, Vertical and horizontal
inheritances
1. The Multiculturalism issues
1.1 The multiculturalism management
There are mainly four manners to manage the multiculturalism: the assimilation, the valuation of the differences,
the recognition and the multiculturalism. The assimilation bases on the necessity of the rights superiority and the
personal freedoms such as conceived by the immigration country. The individuality is the guarantee of equality
between the citizens.
For the most moderate, the neutrality of the public sphere is necessary, what means that the government does not
interfere in the cultural domain, for more the radicals, the government protects the nation majority culture and

32

ISSN 1911-2017

E-ISSN 1911-2025

www.ccsenet.org/ass

Asian Social Science

Vol. 7, No. 1; January 2011

the citizenship. Contrary to the assimilation, the valuation of the differences promotes the expression of the
cultural diversity inside the public area. We try to avoid the hierarchical organization of the cultures. The only
condition is that the expression of the difference does not hinder the rights and the liberties such as understands it
the State. It establishes the most flexible pole. The recognition is situated between the valuation of the difference
and the assimilation. Indeed, we try to establish a just balance between the first two policies. It is interested as
much in the tensions aroused by the intercultural relations as in the social and economics conditions of the
minorities. Finally, the multiculturalism refers to the model of the cultural mosaic led to the extreme in the sense
where every cultural community is connected to the others by the foundation which constitutes all the laws and
the regulations promulgated by the government .In this optics, the public area is culturally split up.
1.2 The identical tensions connected to the vertical and horizontal inheritances
The multiculturalism management intends to ease the expression of the present identical tensions in the society.
These last ones are connected to an imbalance between two types of memberships: vertical and horizontal. The
vertical inheritance corresponds to all values, the customs; faiths were connected to the family history. It is about
the ancestral culture. The horizontal inheritance corresponds to the events which marked the person identity, and
it, since birth. These events are diverse natures and have a different impact. He can involve a meeting, exchanges,
a war, a conflict, a school and social education, etc. It is this last one who is the most determining, and becomes
more nevertheless; this reality is not reflected in our perception of us. It is not to the vertical inheritance that we
refer, but of the other one. We see in this identification a reactionary attitude in front of a situation of exclusion.
The multiculturalism as made sociological upset the balance between the vertical and horizontal inheritance,
because it multiplies the possibilities of exchanges, enrichment, confrontations, identical conflicts and wounds. It
makes a phenomenon which carries as much the germs of the enrichment as the social fragmentation. This social
fragmentation is also dependent in the effects of the globalization which widen the radius action of the vertical
inheritance.
2. Presentation of four models of the multiculturalism
To follow upon the theoretical frame, we propose a study of four models of the multiculturalism which are in
crisis
2.1 French model
The policy of integration in France is considered very strict. Minority necessarily has to conform to the
expectations of the country. It is made possible thanks to the recent hardenings of the selection controls. They
impose to the immigrants the idea that France, as immigration country, has to be a choice which supposes an
accompaniment of the government, but also efforts on behalf of the individuals. France makes respect its own
traditions and its values, while obliging the learning of official language: French. It is the guarantee that the one
who comes in France knows and controls the tools of his integration. The first purpose of the French politic is to
assimilate the immigrants by making them forget completely their origin. In this way, the government uses the
shape of chosen or selective immigration the country chooses his immigrants methodically. In fact, the debate on
the illegal immigration ended in a law in November, 2003 and pulled a contraction of the standards relative to
the immigration in the broad sense. The law of July 24th, 2006, relative to the immigration and to the integration,
marks the passage of a politics of immigration undergone in a selective immigration, because it facilitates the
entrance of the immigrants who are going to contribute to the economic development of France. We can see
clearly that France also meets itself battling against a problem of racism and xenophobia. The French people also
find the too intrusive and threatening Islam. So, the government, by its stiff policies towards the immigrants,
strongly contributed to marginalize the immigrants. This situation of exclusion and incomprehension contributes
to increase violence in the discriminated districts.
2.2 The American model
The policy of American management of the multiculturalism is known under the name of melting pot. It is not
however about a very firm policy. Originally, melting pot refers to the perfect assimilation of the foreigner. The
immigrant has to conform and become integrated completely into his new country of adoption even if it means
forgetting the roots. The pre-war Americanism is a beautiful example of integration of the concept of melting pot
by the society. Theodore Roosevelt said moreover: the Americanism is a question of spirit, of conviction and
commitment and has nothing to do with the faiths or the place of birth. The real Americanism refers to the
incorporation of all the ethnic groups. However, the First World War brings changes as for the meaning of the
Americanism. The national integration does not any more correspond to melt the various ethnicities together, but
rather to make of the immigrant a diligent, loyal, productive, patriotic citizen, without traditions, without
ancestors and without origins to merge better in the American nation. This shape of Americanization deformed
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

33

www.ccsenet.org/ass

Asian Social Science

Vol. 7, No. 1; January 2011

the first sense of the melting pot so that today, it is not any more represented by the metaphor of the melting pot,
but rather by that of the salad bow which means that the various cultures coexist in the same space, but do not
mix. This drift is among others explicable by the fact that the real Americanization did not make in-depth and
that several xenophobic groups or nativistes required a sorting to avoid the fusions of cultures and claimed
restrictive measures in front of the immigration.
The new immigrants, badly integrated within the American nation, were going to become the target of the
current xenophobes and nativities, henceforth dominant after the First World War. The assimilation of the
foreigners was not any more the first objective of Americanism leaders. It was necessary to them to sort out at
first the newcomers to expel those who were not certified loyal. As a consequence, the real Americanization
having had no in-depth place, the melting pot has existed never really and left place (square) with the salad bow.
We can say that the multiculturalism failed in the United States because the immigrants of different cultures are
thrown rejected by the American society.
Although these feel American, the Americans of origin do not so consider them. Consistently, we are observing
the fragmentation of the national unit.
2.3 In Canada
Canada was the first State to be equipped with a law concerning the multiculturalism, (from 1971). This law had
for first objective the construction of the Canadian national unity by valuing the cultural and ethnic diversity, but
by limiting all the same application by the Canadian Charter of rights and Liberties. It is the result of the
Committee recommendations on the biculturalism of 1965 which proposes the passage of a bicultural policy in a
multicultural policy in bilingual frame to answer on one hand the demands of the autochthonous communities
and the newcomers, and on the other hand, to avoid the polarization between the Quebeckers and the Canadians
except Quebec. By adding the principle of equality, expensive to the law on the multiculturalism, to the
Principle of individuality connected to the Canadian Charter, there would have been itself a cultural space
convenient to assimilation.
In quite other a perspective, the criticism of the cultural communities exclusion , a Canadian law on the
multiculturalism provoked a fragmentation of the Canadian community according to the principle of the ethno
cultural membership, because it revived the intercultural tensions rather than to facilitate the construction of the
Canadian nation.
We can regret the association between the principle of equality and the valuation of the difference such as
presented in the law, because it asserts that this association allows justifying the exclusion of the ethno cultural
groups and blocks the social mobility. The principle of difference proclaimed by the law strengthens the
backward-looking attitudes and the lack of communication intercultural, implying so intrinsically a social
hierarchy.
2.4 The British model
In England, it is the civil society which regulates the expression of the multiculturalism and the integration of the
ethno cultural communities, what makes it one of the models the most flexible. The objectives of this policy are
fundamentally social. The first objective, the harmonization of the racial relations, is connected to the massive
establishment of the newcomers from Asia and from Africa in the London districts. The policy on the
multiculturalism aimed, in this order of ideas, to present the members of communities as integral part of a
multiracial society basing on values of tolerance. In the first objective, the policy on the multiculturalism
planned a series of measures allowing the fight against the racial discrimination and the conservation of the
traditional practices in the public area, in particular in the education. It strengthens the ghettosation and the
auto-segregation and explains a not unimportant proportion of the young Muslims been born in British ground
proclaims their religious identity before their civic identity. We realize the profound incapacity of
communication and incomprehension which this policy cultivated.
3. Differences and resemblances between the four models
First, France approaches the assimilation and the pole of cultural luggage of the immigration country. France, by
its policy of assimilation, is rather severe and more conservative. The immigrant has to conform completely to
the values of the republic and merge in a mould by forgetting all , and where he comes from .The French model
is placed below, to the left of the plan, because of our four examples, it is about a model which completely
disregards the cultural luggage of the native country of the immigrant. There are resemblances between the
French and American management policies of the multiculturalism. That is why we placed the American model
in the same dial as France, but closer of the center because it is suppler. Indeed, the first definition of the melting
34

ISSN 1911-2017

E-ISSN 1911-2025

www.ccsenet.org/ass

Asian Social Science

Vol. 7, No. 1; January 2011

pot facilitates the assimilation of the immigrant on one hand by allowing this one to participate in the
construction of the American identity on the other hand by complying with American way of life.
A change took place after the First World War with the succession of the salad bow model. This second
definition refers to the hegemonic character of the United States which sees to it all which is exotic seen revised
and incorporated into the American culture. The cultural constituent so loses its original sense. It is the
Americanization such as we know it today, but it does not have any more for objective to transform the culture,
because he acts as a balm in the mould proposed to the members of the cultural communities. The immigrant has
to cut with his roots to become a real American; however he does not undergo the rigidity of the French-style
policies, because the government legislates little in expression of the difference in the public area. Contrary to
these visions rather assimilative live the model of Great Britain which approaches most the valuation pole and
the differences.
It is very supple in the sense which he allows the newcomers to protect their lifestyle, and it, practically without
limit. It would explain the location to the other extremity of our plan near the pole of the cultural luggage of the
native town. The Canadian model meets itself in the same dial as that of Britain, but more in the center quite as
the American model with regard to France. The Canadian model is stricter than the British model, because it puts
limits in the demands of the cultural communities in the public area.
This model approaches the American model, because it allows the diverse cultural communities to participate in
the construction of the Canadian identity. However, the Canadian model proposes a politics which values the
equality in the differences contrary to the American model which values the standardization. What differentiates
the French model of the American model, quite as what differentiates the British model of the Canadian model;
is the State has no same degree of acceptance in front of the culture modification in the time. Their inclination to
regulate the intercultural relations in the public area is however similar. In other words, the French model is for
the American model that the British model is for the Canadian model. In the American and French case of the
models, although they are situated both in the pole of the assimilation, they do not show officially the same
objectives. Although the French model and the British model establish two radical models, they differ in their
inclination to regulate the intercultural relations in the public place, that is the French model puts the
intercultural relations as an obstacle in the national identity, because it would encourage the balkanization of the
society, while the British model encourages the cultural differences by lauding the equality between the cultures.
The American and Canadian models establish the most moderate and the most flexible models. However, they
differ in their inclination to regulate the intercultural relations in the public place. The American model proposes
a mould to which it is necessary to conform while the Canadian model proposes the cultural mosaic.
4. Hypothesis proposition
To answer this questioning, we integrated into our initiative of the concepts explained previously, more
particularly, the concepts of assimilation and valuation of the differences as well as the vertical and horizontal
inheritance. We put them in relation in a plan constitute by two perpendicular axes. The vertical axes represent
the concept of vertical inheritance. Both extremities of this axes set the country cultural luggage to the native
country or ancestral culture for the minority cultural communities members. The horizontal inheritance sees the
individuals of the same society meet themselves pulled somewhere between both extremities of the axes, but
rarely meet themselves in extremes.
The policies of multiculturalism management partially for objective watching the identical tightness is regulated
and enriching socially, what is not at present the case. These governmental politics policies are situated on the
horizontal axis where oppose the pole of the assimilation and the differences valuation. In the reality, streams of
tensions are applied on these two axes. According to us, to reach the model of multiculturalism management
would be necessary invert the streams of tensions and arrive at streams of communication in the public area. So,
we suppose there is an intimate link between the identical mechanism of the citizens and the difference
management. The individual identity builds up itself in a context of opening, equity and respect, more various
members of the same society will feel capable of becoming integrated into it and of becoming identified with it
and, finally, the more State will be capable of collecting her population around a common project. We also
suppose that the communication is preliminary in the elaboration of a project of society, so this last one is
long-lasting. According to us, the government cannot propose a project of society and a political frame if it is not
preceded by a policy of cultural diversity management which allows the transformation of the common public
culture and it, in a democratic way. Indeed, the identical character of a person or a group of persons is strictly
connected to the perception which people, or society generally, have of them, where from the essential character
of the recognition of the other one. By denying the cultural identity of a group or simply by denigrating it, we
come there to affect the group which defines itself by the glance which the society concerns him. The

Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

35

www.ccsenet.org/ass

Asian Social Science

Vol. 7, No. 1; January 2011

recognition is not simply a politeness which we make to people: it is a vital human need. The non-recognition
can entail the contempt, the hatred or the denial of one whereas the recognition dismisses to the dignity principle:
each in right for the dignity and, for the recognition. It is possible only in a democratic and equalitarian context.
This statement supposes that we are inevitably influenced by the culture in which we evolved and that it is what
defines our cultural identity and, consequently, ourselves.
So, if our cultural identity is not recognized, we feel rejected. This expressed installation as well as the
recognition forces the identity, because to grant the recognition for one person to the identity difference, it is to
grant to this person to be what it is. The policy of the recognition expresses a desire to be respected and not a
desire of condescension, which is of the other thing than the false depreciating respect. It is a question of
recognizing, all so much whom we are, the value equals various cultures, that is not only to let them survive, but
still to recognize their merit. However, this policy will be possible only if we agree to widen our horizon, to
change the vocabulary of comparison, to open in the comparative cultural study and to include what is different
is not inevitably less good or bad. These changes would allow deviating from the value judgment to give way to
the recognition of the differences.
5. Conclusion
So, not only our societies receive and reproduce differences, but they invent it, including under the seal of the
tradition. Each of us, in the most immediate circle of acquaintances, is confronted with the raid of new identities,
even with conversions; each of us observes the development of cultural movements. Some leave indifferent, the
others arouse the most diverse feelings, of understanding and sympathy or, on the contrary, fear, aversion and
discharge. Some day, each of us can also notice that his own experience of a cultural sense of identity, including
the most stable seemingly, is not inevitably definitive, that personal changes are always possible, susceptible to
lead us up to the pure and simple renunciation of an identity, to adopt if necessary a piece of news.
And each of us proceeds to choices relative to the present and in the future, but also in the past: more and more,
we make our report; we fall towards the future by claiming our registration in a history which we make ours.
We live in societies of reception, but also individual and collective production of the differences, and we know it.
In such societies, the political mechanisms of treatment of the difference become inescapable, as we name them
multicultura-lists or as we indicate them otherwise. To face at once considerable and changeable phenomena,
operating within the whole society, beyond and on this side, be satisfied with abstract and automatic rules seems
very insufficient, otherwise dangerous: The push of the cultural differences always calls more democracy, so as
to assure individually the political examination of the demands which they advance, and who are complex all the
more as they have generally strong social involvements. This treatment should be applied closer, scale local as
global ladder, via the action of the big international organizations in particular.
In front of problems raised by such or such cultural difference, the political action needs to join a vision of set, a
frame marked out by general orientations, principles of Justice and democratic values. But it is also necessary to
her to take into account expectations and demands which do not limit themselves to the only carrier group of the
considered difference. This situation confers a major role to all those who exercise an influence on the opinion,
whether it is in the plan of the principles and the values or about a particular difference.
We know that the identities do not constitute one given unchanging, capable only of reproducing or of
disappearing; we know that they are, at least partially, what our societies make. It means that there is place, on
the subject, for reflexivity, a capacity to consider them in the second degree, as the fruit of the work of the
society on itself, and not only as so many challenges or threats. It means, in other words, that next to the
journalism and to the information, a necessary place returns to the social sciences, including if it is a question of
pressing on the opinion and on the representations which it adopts.
References
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association
(6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Andrew, W. (1992). Economic Reform and Social Change in China. New York: Routledge.
Anthony, S. (1981). The Ethnical Revival in the Modem World. Cambridge University Press.
Auerbach, SU. (1994). Encyclopedia of multiculturalism, New York: Marshall Cavendish.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Barber, E. J. W. (1999). The Mummies of Urumchi. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Bartol'D, V. V. (1956). Four Studies on the History of Central Asia. Leiden, E.J. Brill.

36

ISSN 1911-2017

E-ISSN 1911-2025

www.ccsenet.org/ass

Asian Social Science

Vol. 7, No. 1; January 2011

Bernstein, RI. (1994). Dictatorship of virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Futur. New York: A.
A. Knopf.
Castets, R. (2003). The Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The Malaise Grows in China. Perspectives, n.49, pp. 34-48.
Castets, R. (2004). Nationalisme, islam et opposition politique chez les Ougours du Xinjiang. In Les tudes du
CERI, octobre, n.110, 45 pages.
Cheng, Li. (1997). Rediscovering China, Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Christoffersen, G. (1993). Xinjiang and the great Islamic circle: the impact of transnational forces on Chinese
regional economic planning. China Quarterly no.133 (March):130-151.
Daniel, B. (1969). Vers la socit post-industrielle. Paris, Robert Laffont,; Main.
Dru, G. (1996). Muslim Chinese, Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic. Cambridge: Harvard.
Feng, J. (1996). Xinjiang: a big family of unity and progress. Beijing Review, 39. 3 (Jan):15-21.
Franklin E. (1957). Black Bourgeoisie. New York, the Free Press.
Friesen, JH. (1993). When cultures clash: case studies in multiculturalism. Calgary: Detselig Entreprises.
GATES & Louis, H. (1992). Loose canons: Notes on the Culture Wars. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gina, Ph. (1999). From Black to African American. A New Social Representation. Wesport et Londres, Praeger.
Gladney & Dru, C. (1991). Muslim Chinese: ethnic nationalism in the People's Republic. Cambridge, Mass.:
Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
Gladney & Dru, C. (1994). Ethnic identity in China: the new politics of difference. In Joseph, William A., ed.
China briefing. Boulder, Colo.; Oxford, Eng: West view Press, 171-192.
Glazer, N. (1998). We are All Multiculturalists Now. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press.
LECA, J. (1991). Individualisme et citoyennet. In Sur l'individualisme. Thories et mthodes.BIRBAUM, Pierre
et Jean LECA, p.159-209. Paris: Presses de la FNSP.
Li, S., & Anwar, A. (1995). Summary of research on the racial and ethnic origins of China's Xinjiang Uighur
ethnic group. In: Sautman, Barry, ed. Racial identities in East Asia (Tung Ya chung tsu ren tung). Hong Kong:
Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 601-636.
LIND, M. (1996). The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fouth American Revolution. New
York: Free Press.
Loc, W. (1989). The Cost of Racial and Class Exclusion in the Inner City. The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science.
MARSHALL, R., & Thomas, H. (1965). Class, Citizenship and Social Development. New York: Anchor Books.
Martin Barker. (2006). the New Racism, Londres, Junction Books.
Max, W. (1959). Le Savant et le Politique. Paris, Plon.
Michael, S. (1982). Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge University Press.
Norbert, E. (1975). La Civilisation des murs, Paris, Calmann-Lvy, et La Dynamique de l'Occident. Paris,
Calmann-Lvy.
Paul, G. (1993). The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge (Mass), Harvard
University Press.
Satzewich, H., & Victor, N. (1992). Deconstructing a nation. Halifax: Fernwood.
SEMPPRINI, A. (1997). Le multiculturalisme. Paris Presses Universitaires de France.
Stevan, H. (1995). Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers. Seattle: U. of Washington Press.
Takaki, D. & Ronald, T. (1993). A different Mirror. A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little Brown.
Thomas, H. (1989). China and its National Minorities: Autonomy or Assimilation. NY: Sharpe.
Touraine. (1969). La Socit post-industrielle. Paris, Denol.
Wang, J. (1998). Sufi Orders in the History of Xinjiang. Project work at the Truman Institute of Advancement for
Peace. Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Waters, B. & Mary, C. (1990). Ethnics Options: Choosing Identities in America. Berkeley University of
California Press.
William, W. (1987). The Truly Disavantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago,
Chicago University Press.

Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

37